Child of Storms
by Melinoel
Summary: Like the typhoon on the night they first met. Like the thunderstorm that pushed back his departure from late February to early March. Like the deluge that trapped him in a cave for two weeks as punishment for breaking that foolish adolescent promise. Like the downpour on the night he took this frail creature in. The most memorable moments of his life happened during storms.
1. Chapter 1

**AN: I originally published this fic on AO3 and felt compelled to upload it here as a backup in case the AO3 servers crash when I have a chapter ready to go. There are some lovely fanfics I read here I can't find elsewhere, so favoriting them and uploading this is a win-win.**

 **Suffice it to say, I devoured the No.6 anime, manga, and light novels in December 2017, and I felt so emotionally and physically distraught that I felt obligated to write a fanfic to cope with my broken heart. Months of reading hundreds of fanfics, writing a review on my blog, and writing eight chapters for _Child of Storms_ have passed and I am STILL not over No.6. Thank you, Atsuko Asano, for ruining my life. ;_;**

 **Without further adieu, please enjoy. Any and all constructive criticism is welcome.**

* * *

"Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky."

― Rabindranath Tagore, _Stray Birds_

* * *

Sometime between the insane idea to haze the understudies with a lassi drinking contest and the manager calling out the lead actors to give grandiose speeches to close out the season, the rat slipped between the ruckus and the lights of the theater. He'd collect his gold on Friday after the understaffed accountant counted every coin to the drop and before the arrogant divas, recovering from their cannabis-ridden high, robbed more than their fair share of revenue.

Downpour projected the building's radiance in all directions, blinding citizens and stars alike in the red light district. The superfibre cloth, taking the shape and function of a poncho, shielded Nezumi from the sparks of a party on fire, but the rain tore through the fabric and drenched him to the bone. The old thing would have more life in quieter climates, but the inconstant temperature fluctuations and heavy rainfall of the monsoon season aged it at thrice the rate of the light acidic rains of the former Mediterranean Europe to the north or the geothermal deserts of the former India to the east. With the rainy season at its peak, Nezumi's mice learned to readapt to indoor life for weeks on end. Even the mechanical ones could only resist water for four hours, and Nezumi had not yet found high quality salvage to provide longer-lasting protection from extended total exposure.

But it was not uncommon for the blue mouse to burry itself deep in Nezumi's clothes, only to appear when he changed into costume. It was stubborn like its father Hamlet. Both had the insane affinity for very niche, specific things: tragedies for the father and adventures for the offspring. (After discovering a litter of pups encircling Cravat seven months out on the journey, Nezumi learned to not guess the sex of any live mouse he kept.) The family must have convinced it to stay home, as Nezumi felt a nagging solitude in not hissing curses at the blue pest tangled in the folds of his shirt and dangling for dear life by a twisted paw.

Solitude. An ache crinkled inside his ribcage as the cold storm raged louder than the single tall, vast cloud consuming the sky and dumping rain to drown the streets of and the plateaus surrounding No.1.

Nezumi had loneliness as a friend with benefits these past five years. It was a cold that nipped at winter's heels. When it came and went with the seasons, he could bear the harsh mistress' temper. Nezumi, always cunning and quick, avoided much of her tricks and illusions. But cunning and quick was she as well, beating the rat at his own game. His worst defeat was fourteen months ago, and the scars and memories he swore were light as wind were boulders dragging his feet into the earth.

May 19: if that day didn't make a fool of him, losing Hamlet four days later did.

To escape the pit — sometimes a sea of burning bodies or groping shadows or quicksand — he amputated his feet. He would survive by crawling. Losing feet wouldn't break him; humans lived long and well lives without them.

Neither would a brazen drunkard cursing him in Hausa with a shiv that lunged from the dark corner of the gateway marking the divide between the commercial district from the slums. After years of practice and too much exposure to an airhead idiot, Nezumi finally mastered the art of walking and piecing through the thoughts and feelings in his head without losing sight of his surroundings.

The lack of traction on the flooded road gave Nezumi more freedom to incapacitate the man twice his size. He twirled on his feet, brought his arm up to push away the hand with the blade, knelt low, and kicked his attacker's kneecap, shattering his patella. The attacker collapsed and clutched his mangled limb, wailing barely audible over the grumbling rain. Nezumi looked at the soul long enough to realize he was what local denizens called "brittle boned". Knowing the man was no longer a threat, Nezumi walked away with a conscious numbness to the plight of a malnourished stranger who called him a pale demon.

Once he reached the lone fig tree in the center of a half-crowded plaza from the pre-war days, he counted his tenth sneeze. Word claimed the clouds would pass by tomorrow evening, and Nezumi had just enough to hold out to buy food if he woke up with a cold. His hands pruned and his feet were swimming in two inches of water trapped in his boots.

Just two more blocks. The mice would huddle around the coldest parts of his body his blankets could not protect from the draft seeping through the worn, dilapidated structure of the mid- twentieth century relic of an apartment. Seven little bodies were better than none, but one would have been better if he hadn't—

He shook his head. A dull throbbing replaced the end of the thought. No.6 felt closer than his shitty apartment with paper thin walls and cracked windows at this rate.

A faint sound tickled the drenched hair pressed to his neck.

His instincts tapped into something in the world that made him hear and anticipate things most were oblivious to. Several signs he recognized at a young age, but one emerged frequently not long after he left the toppled city.

" _I-I thought you were going to die. My fear of losing you is so unbearable. Nothing scares me more than losing you._ _"_

The tickle to the base of his neck happened suddenly, without warning, and in any other circumstance it would sour any mood for the rest of the day and linger in his inevitable nightmares.

But this sound, getting louder as Nezumi approached his block, did not pinch the nerves that only inflamed in response to the echos of singing or asters. He stood at the door to the complex and a clear sense what the sound is and where it's coming from blossomed in his gut.

It was another shackle, but one an old acquaintance allowed themselves to be bound to.

In the alley between the apartment complex and thrift shop, in the rusted dumpster amidst an ocean of trash and bodily fluids was gargled crying and strained coughing.

Many impulses told Nezumi to walk away as he left the brittle man to bleed to death if someone else hadn't shoved his face into a wall, crushing his malnourished skull like a rotten tomato. Others, first turned on suddenly so many moons ago, navigated him through the cesspool to investigate the dumpster, its stench to last three days longer than average due to sanitation refusing to risk their necks in the slums in the downpour.

"A baby!"

An excitable voice knocked the wind out of Nezumi. Pulling gloves from his pocket and his cloth over his nose, he avoided the rivers of trash and unknown fluids leaking from the bin and looked inside.

"Who'd do such a thing?! We have to help her!"

It was clear, completely unmuffled by the rain. More concrete and real than the dumpster before Nezumi. A cloud of white entered his field of vision, and the angel lifted the baby in his arms. His expectant smirk anticipated the rat's mockery, and unbroken determination burned in his red- purple eyes.

"She's so cute, isn't she? Oh, look, Nezumi! She has brown eyes! They look like how mine used to be! Forgot mine are supposed to be brown, didn't you? I'd say we could be related, but brown's still the most common eye color in humanity, so the chances of that being true are slim. Still, aren't they pretty? They're light enough to see her pupils! I think she's going to be very expressive when she grows up!"

 _He_ held the baby as if it was second-nature, and, given _his_ innate affection for children and animals was always blatant, this should not have surprised Nezumi. The image inflicted burns to his eyes and aches to his chest regardless; just seeing _him_ and hearing _his_ voice were enough to reopen wounds that never had the chance to develop scars.

Then as suddenly it appeared, the apparition dissolved into the rain. The crying that lured Nezumi stopped.

His stomach turned to lead. Before he could process what happened seconds ago or his own reaction to the change of events, Nezumi reached into the dumpster and, elbow-deep in filth, he rescued the baby. Once he broke into the back entrance of the apartment complex, he dropped to the floor and lay the baby on its side on his superfibre cloth.

The baby, stark white and smaller than a watermelon, lie cold and still with its mouth full of the murky water and filth from its polluted crib. He had never touched a human baby before, but Nezumi knew from stories and books that physically they were just a smaller and more fragile adult. He patted its back gently near its lungs until the baby coughed and brought air back into its tiny, visible ribcage. Awakened again the baby shivered and screamed at the sea of discomfort and shit the world tossed it in.

Many things annoyed Nezumi, especially babies, for they are dumb, selfish parasites that never shut up. They couldn't communicate in a way for anyone to understand, and their temperaments were maddeningly unpredictable. But this baby at this time spoke in a language universal to all life: it wanted to survive. All it had was its incessant, piercing cry to survive this round of the dance of death and have the reaper overlook its fleeting existence today. It was distressingly fluent for a creature unable to form a coherent thought.

Nezumi wrapped the baby in his cloth, exposing the creature to the cold dampness a moment longer until they arrived in its rescuer's apartment. Once he unlocked his door on the sixth floor, a chorus of mice clamored up Nezumi's leg to reach the bundle in his arms.

"It's just a baby! Shit, let me in before you make me drop it!"

As he placed the baby on his sad excuse for a couch to change into dry clothes, the living mice pulled the cloth off the baby and used their fur to dry it until the mechanical mice brought the last unused towel before laundry day. Elbow-length damp hair undone and pressed to his skin,

Nezumi returned with a bowl of warm soapy water and a cloth. The apartment was chaos for several minutes as the baby continued to cry while the mice interrogated the mercurial man for the monumental and shocking surprise guest.

Once Nezumi removed every trace of filth from the baby's body, he used an old shirt as a diaper and fed her a crushed banana. Fatigue and fever ached his body, but he fed the baby until she finally stopped crying.

The adrenaline was wearing off, and Nezumi knew he'd pass out within seconds after this on top of a long day closing out the biggest theater production he had ever participated in. His apartment barely had furniture besides the couch, a bed, a dresser, and a desk, covered in scripts and books. He had originally planned to leave the city in a few weeks after getting his last paycheck for the season. But as he lay in bed with the baby tucked in by his side, his plans may change. Besides, he had a question tug his stomach from a painful angle that he had to find an answer to: _Why did I drag a fucking baby into my life?_

He blamed the mirage. No matter where he went, no matter his mood, no matter the timing, _he_ would suddenly appear and give some kind of guidance of where to go or hint at what to do next. Maybe _he_ knew Nezumi removed the weight from his ankles and lured him into another trap, only allowing him freedom until _he_ found a way to have the shackles on an indisposable body part. After all, _he_ knew that baby was a girl with brown eyes before Nezumi brought her in and looked closer. He gasped when her eyes looked into his after having her full with the banana.

They were just like _his_ before the wasp drained his eyes and hair of color.

 _This has to be some cosmic prank._

As he anticipated the veil of a long, painful sleep, Nezumi watched the baby babble to the blue, brown, grey, and black mice encircling her. The blue mouse made itself comfortable on her belly and tolerated her hands grasping for its twitchy tail. The brown mouse, the eldest at thirty months old, sniffled the thin red patch of hair on the crown of her head. It leaned against her scalp to touch the foreign hair that its little curious mind became enamored with. After making new friends, heavy curtains drew over the baby's eyes, and she eased into sleep with the mice as blankets.

Nezumi flattened the tuff of hair the mouse disturbed when it curled into a comfortable position. He had only seen red hair twice before: both in the dwindling number of northern European descendants in No.3. Many recessive phenotypical traits have died out completely, and anyone with eyes or hair that were not some shade of brown or black were viewed as more valuable. Nezumi's grey eyes were no exception, though the four grey-eyed people he has met expressed similar fascination for the shade and color as those in and surrounding the

generally ethnically homogenous No.6. The worth of such things may nearly always be superficial, but for anyone to abandon their own child — designed by nature to elicit unconditional love from her parents, in theory and in practice — disgusted Nezumi. The baby was better off never being born if her mother would throw her away so easily for someone else to take pity on the unwanted burden.

Usually he mocked charity and actions born of pity, but he saved her anyway. Somehow, despite abandoning the only person he ever loved — a conclusion he came to grudgingly while picking up the fragments of the mask he always wore that shattered like glass — his twisted, hypocritical, hardened heart somehow had more humanity than a woman who carried this creature in her womb for nine months and screamed in agony for hours to bring her into the world.

Nezumi's pulse pounded his skull. He felt the first wave of fever wash over him, and knowing the night was far from over, he submitted to his body's commands to heal. The worst may pass in the night, leaving him ready for what the morning brings.

Rest never came to him. He dreamt of Shion, his former home in Chronos, the open window, the medicine kit, his deft suturing, the mugs of cocoa, the purple sweater, the bed.

The memory of Shion's forehead to Nezumi's to check his temperature reminded him of neither bondage nor pain. Every second of that night would replay until they lay beside each other; the intelligence of Shion's sixteen-year-old self shined in those fleeting brown eyes Nezumi did not forget. They were only twelve, but every set of threaded fingers, every embrace, every caress lacked the hesitation and naivety of inexperienced children. Thoughts Nezumi had never admitted in those short, turbulent six months they spent living together were conveyed with the smallest touch or the gentlest sigh. The ease in Shion accepting and initiating affection tied his insides into tight knots that induced an addictive pleasure he had gone without for years.

Every incarnation of the beginning of their mundane ritual they continued to perform four years after Shion's twelfth birthday every night played out differently in all but one way: two halves awake in the morning enveloped in each other's arms, incapable of coming undone until the dreamer awakes alone with his heart mourning its counterpart's absence.

Although the baby's crying woke him up because she needed food and a changed diaper, this morning was no different from any other. After caring for his new deadweight enough for her to stop wailing and go back to sleep, Nezumi sat on his moth-eaten couch and submitted to the aftermath of the dream. He pressed his forehead against his knees as he tasted the quiet tears he held back all morning and were hotter than the peak of his fading fever.

They kissed in this dream. It was full of hunger and desperation he barely restrained when they parted on that windy hill surrounded by barely budding cherry blossoms. No child seasoned by hardship and struggle could ever know how to perform such an act, but he had accepted the lack of realism after the fourth time this particular dream played in the midst of his repressed and suppressed thoughts.

It was pathetic how much he wanted every one of his longings to be real. He should have stolen Shion's first kiss when he had the chance. He should have held Shion until they melted into one being when he slept next to him. They should have claimed each other during their last night together.

Oh, how they were so close to becoming too safe, too involved to ever allow each other to separate. No salve ever soothed the restless rage of the keloid spider on his back like Shion's hands, immune to calluses after years of protection from toil within the walls of the city of No.6. One gentle brush lit untapped nerves in his back; one palm measuring the size of the rough insect rendered him immobile and breathless to sensations that outnumbered and overpowered the signals of pain.

No one touched his scarred back like Shion before or after, and yet he knew with the same certainty one has of their true name that his body was designed for only Shion's touch to cast such magic. He had no control over the sounds Shion lured out of him— did he moan? how loud was he? did he sound like a woman? — and he didn't care so long the dangerous, paralyzing pleasure never stopped. The memory of those caresses and other physical teases spread shivers to every nerve ending, and Nezumi cursed the hard pressure in his lap even more than the tears soaking his sweatpants.

" _Throw every one of your memories away_ _"_ _, huh? So much for practicing what I preach._

No matter who was by his side now, Nezumi hoped — one of a dozen emotions he let himself feel for the sake of his sanity — that Shion still smiled like he did in his dream, like when he watched him from afar. That would mean he could move on and let Nezumi go because his soul didn't break beyond reparation, if it ever broke at all.

 _"People change, boy. That man you believe in will change too. Anyone who stands at the top of a state will change. If he doesn't change, he'll be destroyed._ _"_

That vile, hateful man lied; Shion neither changed nor was destroyed because of No.6. He witnessed it himself. The brilliance of his unfading smile will bring light to a significant other who won't go blind from indirect sight. Nezumi may have saved his life several times, but he could never give Shion what he really needs to live happily and well without want. It's best to leave the boy he loved in the past so he can live in a new present with someone who'll never bear the potential to destroy him like Nezumi.

 _"I'_ _m drawn to you._ _"_

But that was always the problem. Many were more worthy to see it, but the light, a blinding, rare miracle, felt like it shined for only one person; his smile was made only for Nezumi, and only Nezumi had the innate ability to see it for what it truly is. A smile that has been lost to time and distance and alternate futures in which he never left and admitted the truth that continues to scare him.

Shion saved him ten years ago because he's Shion. Nezumi watched over him in secret for four years because he's Shion. He saved Shion from the thrawls of the security bureau and the scientists in the Correctional Facility because he's Shion. He took a bullet for him because he's Shion. He dreams of Shion to this day in spite of every attempt to forget and ignore him because he's Shion. Shion could still smile like the happiest kid in the world despite living off moldy bread and watery soup with the nameless, homeless rat who mocked his idealism and naivety because he's Shion.

Shion is Shion; it's just that simple.

" _Then what would you have me say? 'I love you'?_ _"_

 _Yes._ Nezumi choked on a sob at the subconscious thought, cutting through the conscious lies he fed himself. _No matter what shitty thing I would_ _'_ _ve spat in your face after, you should have said it. Even though I_ _'_ _m gone and you have someone else, I still want you to say it._

Why that boy was ever a mystery to him no longer made sense to Nezumi. He never understood Shion because he never tried. He simply was himself, acting only as himself. There never was another reason but Shion acting and thinking based on how he understood the world from how he was raised. He didn't need to know everything about him; only the fundamentals of his character to discern his feelings and moods with enough accuracy to be reliable matter, and he failed to live to that standard.

Questioning his worldview as often as he did meant to invalidate his perspective, to belittle his

existence, to look down on him, to not see him as his equal. Nezumi questioned Shion's existence ever since the moment he heard the boy scream in the middle of a typhoon. There never was room to accept the breadth of the kindness bestowed upon him without hesitation or complaint.

" _Please, don't go, Nezumi. This world means nothing to me without you._ _"_

He didn't deserve those feelings he supposedly inspired in Shion, and because seeing them displayed before his feet hurt more than when flames boiled the skin on his back, he didn't want those feelings.

It was Nezumi's turn to ruin the baby's sleep, but she was too young to understand or do anything about it.

* * *

Day three of living with the new roommate and Nezumi deeply regretted his irrational moment of altruism and would have drop-kicked her out the window so she'd fall back in the dumpster he found her in if he were a true sociopath. Alas, he wasn't to his relief in spite of his seething anger.

Her ribs were starkly visible, she screamed at every hour due to the fever she developed, and she threw up every scrap of whatever soft food Nezumi had left in his kitchen. He couldn't reach a doctor or buy groceries as No.1's week-long downpour developed into a deluge overnight. The streets of the slums were two feet deep in water, and the ceaseless arguing and despairing of residents on the first floor made him grateful he lived two floors below the roof. Even then, the resident above him bitched every few hours about not having enough buckets to catch the rainwater leaking through, some of which began to trickle between the floorboards above and onto Nezumi's appliances. In a fit of brief paranoia he even turned off the heater in case water dared to compromise the device, leaving him months without warmth instead of days.

Between keeping his apartment clean, calming a sickly parasite, and nibbling on the crumbs his mice had not yet found, Nezumi had no time alone to read, to think, to tinker, to relax. His spirit drained with each passing hour as the light at the end of the tunnel never came no matter how much he pressed onward. At least he had no time for Shion to creep into his thoughts.

By midnight, he couldn't sleep no matter how much he tried to ignore the internal and external pains that assaulted him without end. The baby's cries hit a critical point, and Nezumi had to scream in the hall of the apartment complex before trying to and failing to comfort the ungrateful and stubborn near-skeleton.

The hysterical cries of a sick baby, seven real and mechanical mice's incessant squeaks, the cyclone outside shaking the paper-thin glass windows, and the humid and sticky indoors all overwhelmed Nezumi, and, no longer a child, he could not fight through the pandemonium with his blade or tongue. He could not outwit chaos with charms and words that only sway the hearts of man. It was far from the first time he felt unequipped for the realities of life, but the slings and arrows never cut so deep into the layers of skin protecting the raw, mangled, ugly remains of a rotting heart.

Knowing the theories of human behavior and interaction from all the books he read and collected, he had nothing to offer. His hands were too thin, pale, and hardened with calluses to offer a warm touch. His vocabulary was too broad and biting to offer understanding words.

" _Nezumi... sing a song... for me?"_

Songs can't save anyone. Music can't save anyone. Nezumi can't save anyone. Nothing can save another life but the very life itself that is in danger.

But with nothing left to gain or lose before the last thread of his sanity snapped, Nezumi held his breath, relaxed his hold of the baby, and began to hum. Once he found a pitch the baby responded the most receptively to (beyond her screams weakening into nagging whimpers, he couldn't tell if her moods were fake or genuine anymore), he closed his eyes and let the words flow, seeking crevices in and between immovable stone to fill the empty spaces hidden in plain sight.

 _O twilit sun, o dawning moon  
_ _Spirit away lost dew-kissed wisps  
_ _In light  
_ _In dark  
_ _In shade  
_ _From this life to the next_

Caught by the spell of Nezumi's voice, the mice and the baby quieted their cries a notch. The rodents gathered in a circle at the foot of his bed and tentatively observed their composing master carry the song to soothe the natural and artificial of the microcosm in the apartment.

 _The unbroken, the pure mother  
_ _Bring solace from the lifeblood to  
_ _The friend  
_ _The fiend  
_ _The rest  
_ _For this life and the next_

A branch torn from the fig tree could fly through the window, ushering in the madness outside to undo the growing calm inside, but Nezumi continued to sing and rock the frail little red monster in his arms.

 _Soul-twin long lost, so briefly found  
_ _Stay close to me, never let go  
_ _In wake  
_ _In sleep  
_ _In dreams  
_ _In this life and the next_

Sweat glistened against her skin and memories of pain contorted her face, but her crying ceased. When Nezumi finished, a heaviness released him of his hunched posture and of a sigh too large to escape his throat in one breath. The scars on his back and in his heart continued to ache, yet he would continue to bear them, as the baby could now better bear her illness.

He needed saving as much as she.

"Someone taught me it long ago," he said when her brown eyes, now clear and aware, met his grey. "'One day you will know the true power of song. Use it well as you survive and endure,' she said."

"B-Bah!"

She reached for him with both hands, only managing to grab two fists full of his hair. Her tugs didn't cause pain, but her jovial fixation erased whatever memory of the shroud of illness that terrorized Nezumi out of his light and troubled sleep.

 _Their moods change so suddenly and without warning..._ He clicked his tongue. "At least fifteen more years of coddling needy baggage with the unpredictable temperament of a storm—"

Like the typhoon on the night they first met. Like the blizzard that trapped them in the bunker during the New Year. Like the thunderstorm that pushed back his departure from late February to early March. Like the waterspout that drifted him 100 kilometers further south than his mainland destination. Like the deluge that trapped him in a cave for two weeks without food as punishment for breaking that foolish adolescent promise. Like the downpour on the night he took this frail creature in.

The most memorable moments of his life happened during storms. His entire life nothing more apt than a storm, and this child was caught up in it while another brewed outside the ramshackle apartment.

After having fun tangling Nezumi's hair, her arms fell limp, her eyes drooped, and her tiny mouth let out a ferocious yawn as she snuggled against chest. He ignored the blue and brown mice's begging to sleep beside her and waiting for her clenched fist to let go of his ragged shirt. Once she fell asleep, he tucked her and her companions in her makeshift bed, an unused wooden box stuffed with every blanket and towel he salvaged and cleaned, only then realizing how unconsciously domestic he behaved.

Awkward as this all was, he didn't violently cringe in utter disgust at the idea. It's just another set of skills to learn in order to survive the trials that appear before his path forward in the weird journey of life.

Compelled to not needlessly jinx himself after one success in three days, Nezumi stroked the baby's cheek and whispered before returning to bed for good, "Goodnight, Ranko." It naturally slipped from his lips like so few words he ever spoke.


	2. Chapter 2

"You reason well, and your wit is bold, but you are too prejudiced. You do not let your eyes see nor your ears hear, and that which is outside your daily life is not of account to you. Do you not think that there are things which you cannot understand, and yet which are, that some people see things that others cannot?"

― Bram Stoker, _Dracula_

* * *

Eight days later the clouds parted and water cleared from the streets of the slums, the commercial district, and the downtown district, hugging the slopes of the highlands and overlooking the dozens of tea fields stretching for kilometers to the very edge of an 643-meter-high escarpment. This development did not stop the security bureau from keeping the gate shut and guarded by karunka, their robot street dogs. At the right angle when the sun showed itself, streaks of red embedded in the pigment of the elaborate murals of "Heaven's Gate" glow. Local legends claim the structure absorbed the blood of infidels and traitors for centuries before the Babylonian Accord abolished warfare and before migrants from the north, south, and east fled to the last village in the Mambilla Plateau with a functioning economy. Thousands settled roots deep in No.1 as it was built from scratch, like engineers building a plane while it's flying. It only earned its name as the first city-state because its predecessors across the planet succumbed to the same self-destruction that sank entire countries into radioactive craters.

While this city refused to embrace the brand of authoritarian militarism that consumed the old No.6, even with the old and new ethnic tensions questioning how effectively humans could ever achieve peace, Nezumi happily avoided the historic landmark whenever it closed. He'd rather take two hours to get to work by walking around the circumference of the slums and the downtown districts than have any readied defense screen him before letting him pass through the memories of forgotten atrocities.

He had another reason to avoid the gate today; the karunka's biometric scans would detect a biological male disguised as a woman.

Layers of navy and teal robes he wore protected his limbs and neck from the strong winds, and pins kept the veil in place to cover his hair. Much of his softer adolescent features molded into more angular shapes, but Nezumi's high cheekbones and long eyelashes preserved his androgyny. His subtle, graceful movements continued to help him steal female character roles, and his ability to manipulate his voice aged like wine despite his speaking voice falling into the baritone range. None of that mattered when trying to fool a machine that cannot process ambiguity and complexity.

Nestled between his robes was brown and Ranko, traces of fever still burning her skin. His mechanical black mouse scouted ahead to lead them to the quickest path to the pediatric clinic where the first contact he made in this city works. One of his mice sent her a message requesting an emergency appointment two days ago, and she cut an hour out of her schedule and made clear what she expected in return.

He obtained his income from the theater in his detour to the red light district and returned to the black-stoned main street that cooked through his sandals and warmed his feet. Much of where he walked now had tall, condensed modern architecture that fused the rapidly advancing post-wars technology with British, Islamic, Hausa and other African traditions that have survived. Citizens dressed in an array of styles that reflected their ethnicity and religion or embraced the fashion popularized in No.3 or No.2. Despite the superficial acceptance of diversity in theory, many took a second glance at the pale-skinned, black-haired beauty whose native tongue wasn't English and never spoke to him. Nezumi learned enough tricks to the languages spoken to know who were in awe, who were envious, and who were spiteful of his existence behind his back.

Sandwiched between a bookstore and an animal shelter sat the clinic. He could see through expectant mothers and children clinging to the clothes of women as young as fourteen standing and sitting in the waiting room through the thick tinted window. All eyes turned to Nezumi as he entered and sat beside a water cooler with the interface stating it's out of order. The girls and women gossiped loudly about the recent arrival keeping to "herself" and not fussing over their babies, preventing Nezumi from understanding black's translation of the breaking news update about No.5's first suicide in over a decade. When Ranko whimpered in discomfort, he patted her back gently until she fell back to her state of tranquil silence.

"Hauwa?"

A towering, lanky nurse in his thirties had emerged from the bolted door leading to the examination rooms.

Nezumi rose to his feet; he only waited twenty minutes. Some women who likely waited for hours cursed and spat at him as he passed. He ignored them, hand cradling Ranko's head as if the spit burned through his robs and tried to contaminate her weakened body. The nurse ducked his head under the doorframe and led Nezumi to the third room to their right and knocked twice to announce the contact's arrival. When three knocks replied, the nurse ushered Nezumi in and locked the door behind him.

"Be careful how you present yourself," greeted the doctor, yanking the veil and clips off his head and placing them on her desk beside her yellow hijab she discarded moments ago. When the black mouse climbed her shoulder and chirped its hello, she gave it a tender stroke to its head. " _Khanith_ aren't loved by all here, even the actors."

Nezumi's laugh was light and gentle as a feather. "Am I to know every insult?"

When the doctor tapped her foot to the ground and shook her head at his blatant ignorance, and thus subpar acting, Nezumi dropped the feminine voice he relied on to keep his disguise and switched from Arabic back to his native Japanese. "Very well. We'll conduct business the long way with a mediator to miss every nuance in my impenetrable rhetoric."

Even with the most comprehensive translation software found only on the black market installed in his best robot mouse, he was correct. But he also couldn't resist trying to make the woman squirm.

She wasn't impressed. "Please keep your ego in your pants. There's a child present."

"I would never! Where is your bedside humor, Yako? Did you leave it on the wayside like your religion?"

"Only when symbolism gets in the way of duty. And I only insulted you after a fine master of language and manipulation such as yourself took me too seriously." She half-heartedly gestured at the very person she described. "And it's Kuru, rat." She put on white gloves from beneath the sink and nearby eye chart. Tattoos of hymns and vines etched her skin from her fingers to the base of her skull beneath coiled hair dyed blond. "You have the gold?"

He tossed the bag, landing in the sink, and placed Ranko, drowsy and groaning from waking up suddenly, on the examination table. Brown refused to leave her side and slid between her arm and her torso to prove its conviction. Kuru counted the full payment they agreed to and approached the baby with a frown worrying her face. She didn't shoo Nezumi or the mice away when they stopped closer to watch her check Ranko's temperature, breathing, blood pressure, and measurements.

Kuru's expression stayed dark after her silent fifteen minute round of basic tests. "On the second shelf above the microscope is my DNAIR. It's no bigger than a civilian-standard datapad. It looks like a remote."

Nezumi's twisted into a half-smirk as he approached the desk. The black mouse followed him and investigated the clutter on the cool metal desk. "Is the professional actor your assistant now?"

"No more than an engineer based on those robot vermin you craft to do your scavenging." He gasped in pain and placed a hand over his heart in mock offense. Kuru rolled her eyes, adding, "I could correct your actor statement and call you a professional courtesan, but I'd rather not lose a wealthy client."

"I don't get paid enough to sleep with my fans, and my manager doesn't swing that way even if I wanted to fuck my way to the top." He picked up a white device made to settle in someone's hands with the ease of a stress ball. "Is this the 'dinar', Yako?"

" _DNAIR_. Deoxyribonucleic Acid Identity Reader. And yes."

Watch he did in silence after rolling his eyes. He leaned against the barred window looking into a "dirty" back alley as clean as the "pristine" fig plaza in the slums. Kuru dabbed a swab of saliva from Ranko's mouth and inserted the sample into the DNAIR. The doctor occasionally baby talked and tickled the infant to make her laugh as she waited for the results to appear on the device's screen. Either it was woman's inherent nature or a individual's affinity that proved how incompetent Nezumi was during his days of scrambling futilely to meet the baby's needs.

"Does she have a name?" asked Kuru, intuiting his insecurity.

 _Cheep cheep!_ the mice sang in unison before their master could open his mouth.

"Ranko."

"No way anyone here's going to pronounce that right," she said. The way her expression softened, however, showed her approval of a young man in his early twenties being responsible as a reluctant parent. "Such a shame. I can't use the name my parents gave me for that reason. If it means anything, use its linguistic equivalent in Arabic, English, and Hausa to make it easier for the locals. Keep that name for official records if you're adding her to the GCD."

"I'm not staying long enough to cater to their linguistic deficiencies."

"Glass houses, _fa'r_. Just say what 'Ranko' means. It can't be that bad."

"What if it's an insult in all three languages?"

"They don't share one root language in common, so I doubt it. Are you saying her name's even not good in English? You came to the wrong city-state, where half the population is a native or fluent speaker."

She was right, and he hated to admit it. Had he not learned some English from his books and a few prospective immigrants in the West Block, Nezumi would not have had the essentials to adapt to life in No.3, No.5, and No.1, all of which have English as a government-recognized language. He scratched the back of his neck, both due to his scarf making him itchy and feeling a tad exposed to remember his half-asleep logic at the time he named her. Furthermore, it wasn't even a name in most of the languages still spoken in 2023.

"It's 'storm'."

Kuru snorted.

"'Storm'? Leave it to a rat who scraps up any name that suits his needs to pick something unusual. Did you name her because you 'found her in the middle of a storm'?"

 _She didn't quite live up to her namesake. "I will laugh like a hyena, and that when thou art inclined to sleep." What a pity._ "Just do your damn job," he spat, staring out the window to hide a dash of pink pedals painted on his cheeks. "I don't pay you enough to endure harassment."

His mice agreed, chirping indignantly and demanding the woman apologize for mocking their best friend.

"It could be worse," she assured them. Gargling and babbling, Ranko reached for the stethoscope that Kuru took off and let her play with. "My roommate named her hydrophobic son after an Italian sports car from 1948. They got laughed out of No.3's airport customs and never had their vacation. The name you picked, Ranko, means something more than a 'little boat' no one remembers. Her name probably sounds fine in Japanese, unlike 'Barchetta'."

The DNAIR beeped and projected the analyzed results. She pressed a few buttons that told the device to transfer the information to Nezumi's ID bracelet. He opened the info packet to follow along with Kuru's explanation, delivered plainly with forced calm in her voice.

"The good news is she's not brittle-boned. Bad news is she's still sick. This baby doesn't look it, but she may be at least six months old and might have been a premature birth. She's 40.67 centimeters with a cranial circumference of 34 and weighing 1815.8 grams. She's underweight, but not so malnourished that she has any vitamin deficiencies. She is capable of adjusting her pitch and volume when babbling, so her language acquisition might not be impaired. She'll need to drink nutrient-rich formulas for a while until she gains weight, but continue to introduce real food since she can digest it."

A notification appeared on Nezumi's screen, taking him to a list of formulas, their ingredients, and nutritional values. Kuru added a note recommending a reliable brand endorsed by the World Health Organization and made specifically to combat infant malnutrition. He thought of the man who attacked him last week and exhaled the anxious breath he unknowingly held since he first saw Ranko.

"As for her genetics, her mitochondrial DNA has a R haplogroup common in Eurasians, and she has phenotypical traits in common with the Uyghurs, Irish, and Turks. She is a heterozygous sickle cell carrier and has genetic factors that increase her risk for asthma and renal disease. There is more hereditary data that requires a comparison between her and her biological parents, but I cannot identify them. They may not have been registered in the GCD, leaving me no medical records to draw from."

Nezumi mirrored her furrowed brow. "They must've been nomads or homeless if that's the case. Or they purposefully removed themselves from the system. How counterproductive. Even I'm registered."

Having his identity on file in the Global Census Directory so he could receive advanced medical treatment and pass customs and security screenings was insurance Karan spent three days convincing him to accept as her goodbye and thank-you gift. He complied with only one condition: he would not be listed as a citizen of No.6. There was another which motivated him to avoid official paths in and out of the city-states and to stick with underground networks when he needed to accomplish anything that required the use of his ID if he did not embody his namesake.

"It doesn't matter now. They lost the right to call her their child the moment they threw her in a dumpster." Her fingers danced along the interface drafted up another file for Nezumi. "Here's additional literature to read and review. Childrearing is difficult enough for adult couples. You'll need every reference and resource you can get to anticipate most scenarios."

"Who says I'm going to raise her?" he asked, tone flat and apathetic.

Sighing, Kuru threw away her gloves and made the room immaculate of all traces of their meeting. "Stop pretending you don't have a conscience, rat. It's served you better than detachment."

"Don't talk like you know me, Yako. Stick to science, for your words have the depth of a pond. Rhetoric's not your strong suit."

"Playing a simple machine incapable of feeling isn't yours."

Anger carved ravines in her face, but she spoke with enough patience until the last drop of water on Earth dries. He might have been too delirious to remember that fight, but Kuru could still hear the little boy calling her to heal the so-called "white demon" who chased the traffickers out of the slums. She even gave into his wish to avoid hospitalization and treated his wounds in her own home with every tool to suture vessels and clean open sores.

"You've endured things that would kill a man of lesser fortitude because you refused to let this world change who you are. Nurture and protect that part of yourself that makes you the real you; that's what it really means to survive. If you raise this child, never embrace what isn't you. She comes first, and she can't learn to strive to reach her best potential if you refuse to try yourself."

The base of Nezumi's neck flinched. He could see himself through _his_ eyes. Pleading, voice hoarse from large hands throttling his neck.

 _"I want you to stay as you are, Shion. No matter what you see here, don't change. Fight yourself if you have to. The Shion I know would never kill anyone."_

He rubbed his eyes to erase the warped footage that played. His heart raced, and his breathing shortened, anticipating the flashes of blood, guns, and corpses in bright decontaminated hallways leading to every corner of hell. Nezumi pushed himself off the window and, ignoring the doctor and the baby, snatched his veil from the table. His fingers trembled as he used the mirror over the sink to re-adorn his hair.

 _He's gone. A pistol lodged between white silk thickets of hair - NO! Not dead. He's alive. Alive, but in the past. He's not your present. Forget him. Forget. Forget. Forget..._

"Whatever's eating you, whatever's scaring you, you need to face it -"

"You think I don't know that?!" A dent in the metal sink tipped the balance of the soap canister until it fell to the metal floor with a plastic clatter. "Just stick to the fucking job I paid you for and don't pry into outside business!"

Kuru did not flinch, but her eyes arched in sadness as the gut feeling she had was proven right by his sudden, violent outburst. Were his voice not so deep, his reflection was the spitting image of a woman who had embraced madness.

Ranko's shrill cry brought their attention back to who really mattered right now. She writhed, flinging her hands, fists, and feet as she threw her tantrum, showering the adults in shame for their self-absorbed argument. Nezumi would have smirked at the doctor failing to live by her own advice, but he had to calm the baby down.

If he looked confident and in control on the outside, Nezumi was screaming in utter panic inside. Her wails grated at his ears, and he shifted his arms constantly to keep the writhing bundle of hell from falling head-first. Once he found balance and calmed down enough to not be reactionary, he tried the same trick that worked before. He hummed the song, and his thumb stroked her temple right beneath the patch of silk-smooth red hair. Ranko coughed and whimpered as the song pacified her. When her crying ceased, her large brown eyes traced every detail of Nezumi's face, taking in the very different but familiar person who responded to her every need.

"Bah...?" Her pitch raised at the end, as if asking a question.

Nezumi sniffed, lips twitching into an awkward smile. "Yeah, kid. 'Bah'."

"Bah!" Ranko cooed, reaching to touch his face. He leaned close enough for her to whack his nose with her palm. "Bah! Bah!"

The mice and Kuru watched the scene as if it resembled a madonna-and-child painting lost with much of humanity's greatest accomplishments and triumphs. They didn't dare interrupt, instead waiting for Nezumi's inevitable blistering embarrassment and insistence he did not care about the baby and refused to carry it around for how many years it'd take for her to be independent and self-sufficient.

When the cross-dressing young man did just that, Kuru felt the bag of gold weigh heavily in her pocket. Their one hour appointment was up, and Nezumi tucked Ranko and his mice in his robes as he reached for the door that the nurse who let him in earlier unlocked moments before.

"Wait." Kuru threw the bag back, which Nezumi caught on reflex, but didn't mask the doubt and confusion he felt. "Use every coin and bill you earn so she has the life you never got to have, starting with getting her in the GCD."

He clicked his tongue. "Didn't pin you for an altruist. What makes you so sure that's true?"

" _Omae wa faita da, Nezum_ i. You'll make it true. _Khuda Hafiz._ "

This stranger's stubborn, unfounded belief in him, a "fighter", gave Nezumi the chills; he didn't bother to comment on her speaking his native tongue. It was not unlike the day he woke up in an unfamiliar house, her changing his IV and checking his vitals after surviving the ambush that introduced him to the underbelly of No.1. Without looking back, he left the clinic and dragged his feet to the midtown market and grocer, not for her satisfaction or approval, but for the part of him that has been starving and neglected.

* * *

They told him Ranko's first word was "back."

But even before her first word, the girl proved to have an inquisitive mind. Once she gained the weight needed to be healthy and normal according to Kuru's literature, she crawled into any nook and cranny of Nezumi's apartment she could squeeze into. He rarely bought her toys because the mice were her constant yet spontaneous playmates. They loved hiding under his bed and attacked his feet whenever Nezumi passed, careful to not kick when Ranko had a death grip on his ankle. Whenever she played too rough, the mice gently bit her, but she didn't cry or throw a tantrum. She saved those outbursts for bedtime, when she demanded Nezumi to sing her to sleep. On the rare days his voice gave out from performing at the theater, especially during a Hausa reinterpretation of _Carmen_ , he drank ginger and honey-infused water until it left his body on the fast lane to the bathroom and his chords recovered enough to grant the spoiled princess her heart's desire.

Like any other child, she had very specific demands that had to be met or else it's the end of the world. She needed a _shower_ , not a bath, every night ("You're not going to drown in a fucking puddle!" Nezumi yelled over Ranko's glass-shattering shrieks at the sight of the water-and-soap-filled kitchen sink). She stuck up her nose at any food that wasn't green, yellow, or brown ("Do I have to force you not NOT eat what can pass for grass or dirt?" he grumbled when she knocked to the floor her bowl of fresh mixed berries he bought on sale from the uptown import market). She refused to be outside without having a panoramic view of where Nezumi was walking at all times ("Who are you, my mama or a sightseer, princess?" he teased after his ribs recovered from her punches and kicks to free her head from the dark prison of cloths).

Nezumi didn't leave Ranko completely alone when he worked long days during the theater's seasonal peak. An old woman who lived beneath him who had raised her children and grandchildren for most of her life would make sure Ranko had food and a clean diaper at regular intervals. She was the only neighbor who knew the mice lived there, and they, grateful for the sweets and cheese she'd leave for them, could fetch her if they needed help. But this arrangement wasn't enough for blue or black. Three times a week they'd pestered Nezumi in his dressing room to update him on Ranko's wellbeing from her rolling wall-to-wall on her stomach to flipping through the pages of a book he left laying on the floor.

One day in mid-December, brown joined the duo's incessant chirping over Ranko's first word. They nibbled Nezumi's fingers and pulled his pant legs, insisting he return home to witness this amazement development as soon as possible. He did not cave in, but the theater let everyone leave to beat the snowstorm the government forecasted at 22:39 in an emergency broadcast. This fact did not dissuade blue, black, and brown from celebrating the undeniable influence they hold over their master.

Nezumi arrived outside of his door just before midnight to hear Ranko imitating sounds and trying to string them together in a tapestry above the capacity of her budding vocal chords. Amid the sudden pauses, the repetition, and inconsistent keys, he could gather enough pieces of her nonsense to presume what lullaby she was teaching herself. _"Tender Shepard", Peter Pan. 1954_. His understudy taught him the song when she proved she could cover him on nights when he couldn't perform or during Ranko-related emergencies.

Her singing stopped when he unlocked the door. As Nezumi entered, grey and white greeted him first from their lazy lounge with Ranko on the knitted blanket/carpet the old woman left as an early Christmas gift, the first holiday gift he ever received. Ranko, with the massive smile only an innocent could make, sat upright, threw her arms in the air, and shouted.

"Baka!"

When he fled for his life over ten years ago, he nearly broke his neck when discovering the source of the acidic-burning sensation on his arm came from the anticoagulent-coated bullet that grazed him. Nezumi's head _almost_ turned as sharply to his eager greeter. His face contorted, no doubt displaying bafflement and offense. Black and blue leapt to the kitchen counter and joined the chorus of squeaks resembling laughter from the mechanical mice lurking on the bookshelf to brown, white, and grey rolling on the knitted blanket.

It took Nezumi five seconds for his brain to reset and realize the mice set him up.

"Baka!" Her arms stretched out to the infamous "white demon", who gutted dozens, dazzled hundreds, terrified thousands, and was left utterly stupefied by a baby.

Abandoning the knapsack he dropped during the assault, Nezumi sighed through his hands. Once he regained his composure, he supported Ranko with one arm as he searched for the retired superfibre cloth he now used as a sling with the other.

"Baka!"

"Please watch your tongue, my lady." She let out a silent sneeze when Nezumi's finger briefly brushed her nose. "'Bah' isn't a word, but it's more worthy of your station than 'idiot'. Where did you learn that word?"

"Baka!" she insisted, pointing where his furrowed brows met to deepen his glare. "Baka! Baba! Baka! Baba!"

"Ah-ha!" he exclaimed, pinching her healthy cheek gently enough to not make her too upset. "'Baba' is much less insulting, so call me that instead. Besides, I own the rights to 'idiot', so you can't use it without my permission."

Her eyes mimicked his earlier glare. Sitting upright on his bed waiting for the end of the preparations to her throne, she said the forbidden word thrice more until Nezumi finished wrapping the cloth around himself.

When Nezumi adjusted the sling for his princess' optimal comfort, her tiny fists grasped the fabric of his black long-sleeved shirt. Ranko sat upright, her head peaking over the cloth cradling her to watch him wander the tiny apartment and reheat the last of the tomato, spinach, okra, and daddawa soup he made on Tuesday. Sometimes she'd suggest what to add in the food he cooked - usually any ingredient she recommended was yellow or green or brown - and sometimes those experiments ended with a new entree or stew combination that tried to outmatch his Macbeth soup.

When he informed her nothing tasted better than his specialty, she stopped nibbling the piece of heated bread he broke for her when they sat to eat on the couch and grinned, displaying five white teeth emerging from her gums. _Had she grown that fast? Where'd the time go?_

"Baka!"

"How do you even know without having tried it?!"

"Baka!"

"There is no winning against you. Even when you're old enough, I won't let you ever have Macbeth soup. How's that?"

"Baka!"

"FINE! I'm an idiot! Happy? Will you stop now?"

"No!"

Nezumi ate the rest of his dinner in disgruntled silence, watching Ranko laugh, clap, and sing in no particular order for any particular reason.

* * *

The first snowflakes of the first blizzard of winter descended upon the empty streets of the slums, and Nezumi draped blankets over the windows to prevent the heat from escaping the thinly insulated building. Climate change made winters in No.1 harsher than what was once considered normal on the Mambilla Plateau, and it was the humidity that made the coldest and hottest days most unbearable. Newer buildings accommodated the new weather if they lacked climate controlled environment systems, both unlike this relic of a building.

Nezumi shared his bed with Ranko and the mice so they wouldn't depend too much on the old heater that groaned whenever the temperature was raised too high. On a whim Nezumi had picked up a book prior to settling into bed and read it aloud. Ranko stared at him, disappointed his voice was deeper and rougher than she wanted it to be. She didn't express her dissatisfaction for long when Nezumi changed tone, pitch, and accent for each character he brought to life.

"Cesario, thou know'st no less but all. I have unclasped to thee the book even of my secret soul..." He used his usual speaking voice for Orsino, informing the man-disguised Viola to tell Olivia of his love for her. "...Prosper well in this, and thou shalt live as freely as thy lord, to call his fortunes thine."

"I'll do my best to woo your lady -" Then the light octave for Viola became breathy when he conveyed her as herself, "- Yet, a barful strife! Whoe'er I woo, myself would be his wife."

Ranko's eyes sketched every expression, and her ears every intonation as he drew her further and further into the tale. The mice lay just as absorbed, forgetting their earlier drowsiness from eating too much Persian flatbread from the bakery near the gardens surrounding city hall and the multi-denominational temple shared among the followers of the four main old religions practiced in No.1.

Time passed quickly; the world outside of the apartment ceased to exist. No disease, no poverty, no tribalism, no corrupt men, no foul tempers from the sky would bring the curtain on the show. Nezumi became lost in his own performance too, understanding the wide-eyed stare from the infant who twisted her body so she could never lose sight of the man too incredible to be raising her. There was another emotion flickering in her eyes, but he dared not to think more beyond the girl feeling something more profound than awe.

He used the intermission to fill his tea mug with water to keep up his unpaid overtime that didn't feel like work for once.

"O thou dissembling cub! What wilt thou be when time hath sowed a grizzle on thy case? Or will not else thy craft so quickly grow, that thine own trip shall be thine overthrow? Farewell, and take her; but direct thy feet where thou and I henceforth may never meet!"

Even the timing of his voice growing strained fit the desperate mood of the lines he delivered a little too well. He had to pause a few times to soothe Ranko's distressed whimpers. _Too stubborn, sensitive, and perceptive for her own good_ , he told himself.

As he promised, the play ended with a happily ever after. When the _Twelfth Night_ came to a close and the light of the bedside lamp went out at the crack of dawn, Nezumi closed the book and took a deep sip from his mug. Having had memorized the last lines and still been enraptured by the soul of the play, he got up, sat Ranko upright in bed, and belted into song, centerstage of the one-and-a-half room apartment:

 _When that I was and a little tiny boy,  
_ _With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,  
_ _A foolish thing was but a toy,  
_ _For the rain it raineth every day._

 _But when I came to man's estate,  
_ _With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,  
_ _'Gainst knaves and thieves men shut their gate,  
_ _For the rain it raineth every day._

 _But when I came, alas! to wive,  
_ _With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,  
_ _By swaggering could I never thrive,  
_ _For the rain it raineth every day._

 _But when I came unto my beds,  
_ _With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,  
_ _With toss-pots still had drunken heads,  
_ _For the rain it raineth every day._

 _A great while ago the world begun,  
_ _With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,  
_ _But that's all one, our play is done,  
_ _And we'll strive to please you every day._

Out of breath and muscles sore from dancing to the point of overexertion, Nezumi bowed before eight of his devoted fans, cheering as loud as their little bodies could muster. Their neighbors complained about their ruckus until the day they left the city, but with enough food, blankets, books, and free time to rest and stay indoors for an entire day if he wished, Nezumi would never apologize for the most spontaneous fun he had since... He could probably remember when if he wanted to entertain the thought, which he didn't.

 _"One two three... one two three... one two three..."_

* * *

 **AN: I like to think Nezumi's reaction to being called an idiot by a toddler is identical to when Shion named his mice in the anime. Priceless. XD**


End file.
